Chapati is a well known product in the Asian culture which nowadays becomes more and more popular outside Asia as well. A chapati needs to meet a number of quality requirements in order to be considered as acceptable for the consumer. E.g. the chapati needs to be soft and the shortness (shear value) of a chapati (as a criterium for toughness and chewiness) needs to be correct to provide the desired product characteristics to the chapati. Moreover the known production processes for making a chapati often lack of ease of kneading of the dough, whereas the way the dough resulting from these known processes can be sheeted is also often very difficult. Moreover the puffing of the doughs resulting from these known processes also is often insufficient. Baked chapati also suffers from very short shelflife. It would further be very beneficial if softness and pliability of chapatis could be increased over a period of 4 hours after baking.
Therefore we performed a study to find out whether we could develop a modified wheat flour that upon use in chapati could solve all of above problems. This study resulted in the finding of a novel wheat flour with very good product characteristics so that this flour is very suitable for use in chapati""s. These novel wheat flours can be made by a very specific process which is also part of our invention. Simultaneously we found that this new process also could be applied on rye grains resulting in products with beneficial product characteristics for applications in other food areas.
Therefore our invention concerns in the first instance heat treated wheat or rye grains that are characterised by:
a bulk density of 0.4 to 0.75 kg/l, preferably 0.45 to 0.65 kg/l, most preferably 0.5 to 0.6 kg/l and
a dry gluten content of 0 to 2 wt %, preferably 0 to 1 wt %, most preferably 0 to 0.5 wt %.
The bulk density is measured by determining the volume of 100 g of material in a measuring cylinder and is expressed as kg/l and the gluten content is measured by AACC method 38-10 (9th Ed, 1995).
When the products mentioned above are milled using well known milling methods a flour is obtained that can be used for the purposes set out above. This flour can be charaterised by:
an amount of damaged starch, as measured by AACC method 76.30A of 25 to 80 wt %, preferably 35 to 65 wt %, most preferably 40 to 60 wt % of the total amount of starch in the flour
a water binding capacity of more than 1.5 and less than 6 g water per g dry matter, preferably from 2 to 5, most preferably from 2.5 to 4 g water per g dry matter
and having an initial gelatinisation temperature by amylograph of more than 50xc2x0 C., preferably more than 60xc2x0 C.
and having a particle size of 1 to 200 micron.
The amount of damaged starch is defined on basis of AACC method 76.30A. If another method would be applied another outcome should be expected thus it is important to use this standard method.
The water binding capacity is measured by mixing 1 g of flour with 6 g of demineralised water in a 10 ml centrifuge tube. It is rested for 30 minutes and then centrifugated for 10 minutes at 10.000 rpm, the supernatant is discanted, the weight increase is measured and expressed as Water Binding Capacity. The gelatinisation temperature is measured by a Brabender amylograph metod (ICC method 126.) The bulk density of above flours is less than 0.57, preferably less than 0.55, most preferably less than 0.52 kg/l. The dry gluten content of these flours is less than 2 wt %, preferably less than 1 wt %, most preferable 0 to 0.5 wt %.
Chapati dough cannot be made with pure treated flour. Minimal 50% standard flour should be present. We found that the desired improvements already could be obtained to a large extent if a blend of the flour according to the invention with another flour was applied. Therefore our invention also concerns blends comprising 50 to 95 wt % of a standard flour and 50 to 5 wt % of a flour according to the invention wherein the blend has a initial gelatinisation temperature of more than 40xc2x0 C., preferably more than 50xc2x0 C., most preferably more than 55xc2x0 C.
The heat treated grains according to the invention can be made by a process wherein a cereal, selected from the group consisting of wheat and rye is introduced in a reactor, wherein an annular fluidized bed from the grain is maintained above a perforated plate by introducing the grains above the perforated plate and simultaneously introducing fluidizing gas, providing a tangential velocity component to the fluidizing bed and fluidizing gas, providing an axial velocity component to the fluidizing bed from below the perforated plate in the reactor at a temperature of 200 to 350xc2x0 C., in which fluidized bed the grain is subjected to a heat treatment for 15 to 90 sec, while avoiding local overheating and overburning. Equipment that can be used for performing this process is disclosed in a number of patents such as EP 68853; EP 288141; EP 382769. However the best equipment which gives the best results is the equipment disclosed in our copending EP application 99202665.8 (filing date Aug. 17, 1999).
In above process it is advantageous to introduce the gas providing the tangential velocity component to the fluidizing bed as a pulsating gas. Very beneficial results are obtained if the pulsation of the tangentially introduced gas occurs with a frequency of 0.25 to 10 Herz.
According to another embodiment of our invention we found that the flours according to the invention can be used for the improvement of a number of parameters of the chapati product or for a number of process characteristics. Therefore our invention also concerns the use of a wheat flour according to the invention or of a blend, containing the wheat flour according to the invention to increase the ease of kneading and/or the ease of sheeting and/or puffing of a chapati dough, and/or to improve the softness, and/or the shortness (less tough and chewy) of a chapati.
A last embodiment of our invention concerns chapati flours that are a mix of a standard flour and a heat treated flour according to the invention, in particular a flour comprising 1 to 25 wt % of a special flour, in addition to a standard flour, wherein the special flour is a heat treated wheat flour according to the invention or a blend containing this flour according to the invention.
It was further found that rye flours made by our novel process and which meet the same product characteristics as our novel wheat flours could be used beneficially for the production of Dutch Honey cake. It was further found that wheat flours made by our novel process could be used beneficially for the production of dried soup or for the production of cakes (wherein it can be applied as non-chlorinated flour) or for the production of snacks such as croquettes or bitterballen.